besides adding massively to the national debt, what else did bush's tax cuts do?

[NYcarbineer]

Democrat is the Fat Cat Wall St party of billionaires
Tax Cuts
Bailouts
Political donations



Democrats are evil

damn... one lie after another after another after another.


and they say you aren't any good at trolling.

poor nutbar.

Tarp 2?
Stimulus?
Tax Cuts for Billionaires signed by Obama?
Wall St donated more money to Democrats than any other party in 2008?



eat the facts *****

You've wandered into the grown-up section, lad.

 

[grunt11b]

I really don't see anything positive that came from it

Cutting taxes don't add to the debt, spending more then you take in does.

More nonsense.

If you spend $100 and take in $100 of taxes your budget is balanced.

If you spend $100 and cut taxes 20%, you take in $80 and you now have a $20 deficit.

It's math people.

Being the government is not entitled to our extra money they should run the government within the means by which they are authorized to tax us at. There are certain tax codes they use for revenue to run this country and if they lived within those means we would not run a deficit.
Cutting taxes allow people to spend more of their own money and puts more money back into the economy, when more money is spent into the economy more businesses hire more people, and then those people spend more money in the economy which in turn creates more tax revenue for the government.
Stop listening to the funny math that they love so much on the left, it's a failure.

 

[grunt11b]

Here, buy this, it will help.

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=economics+in+one+lesson&x=0&y=0]Amazon.com: economics in one lesson: Books[/ame]

 

[NYcarbineer]

No no, Jimbo. I was right. You DON'T get it. Your language gives that fact away.

Your contention: 'The WEALTHY will see the tax cuts that have added to the deficit.'

(A) You are engaging in the old divide and conquer class warfare rhetoric of your ilk. Unpersuasive, to say the least.
(B) You are factually stupid. Tax cuts don't add to deficits. Period.
(C) Spending, and spending alone is capable of adding to deficits.
(D) Perhaps most importantly, you START with an old, ridiculous and much refuted premise. You begin what would-be your "analysis" by presupposing that what "those" rich guys earn is somehow justifiably taken by you and the liberal governmental policies you endorse. In that premise you are flatly wrong.

The government was NEVER granted the Constitutional AUTHORITY to take from "the rich" in order "to give to the poor." You confuse the Robin Hood mythology with proper governance and political theory. Probably not entirely your fault. You are a lib, after all.

You should look up what a deficit is to avoid looking... uninformed.

Oh hell. I'm feeling charitable. Let's give you an example, Cartman. I doubt you will be honest enough to follow along, but still, as I say, I'm feeling charitable. So, just in case you can be honest.

Let's say that the Government of Libdumb has taxed its citizens so hard and so high for so long that there is no longer any production in their economic sector earning any appreciable income above bare minimum subsistence.

So, in the past year, during fiscal year 2010-2011, the dopey liberal leaders of Libdum "spent" 5 Billion dollars -- which they did not have -- on programs they clearly could not afford. They drove themselves 5 Billion Libdum Dollars deeper into debt. Now they have to make some choices.

Can they cut taxes to the point where the income and wealth producing sector of the land can earn wealth above bare minimum subsistence? Sure they can. In fact, there's no reason not to try it.

Let's say they do that. They cut their unGodly high confiscatory tax rate. Commerce and industry come back with a bang. Even on the much lowered new Libdum national income tax "rate," the Government of Libdum finally HAS some revenues! (O joy!) NOW they can spend that money on their national needs (including possibly paying down a bit on their debt). Or, in the alternative, they can spend far more than they take in yet again. If they do the latter, their deficit spending will increase the national debt, not lower it.

Oddly, though, the first step was crucial. LOWERING TAXES CAN CLEARLY YIELD INCREASED Government revenues.

Now, tell me how ANY spending (except the spending needed to pay for interest and principle on the debt) can possibly do anything helpful in terms of cutting the deficit?

Your example doesn't work because taxes have been successively lowered multiple times since 1993. In fact, lowered repeatedly since 1981.

Tax cuts didn't save us from the last recession. Didn't save us from the jobless recovery of the Bush years. Didn't save us from the current sluggishness of this recovery.

With taxes lower and lower, and the economy not responding, and deficits growing because of lost tax revenue, clearly the policy of borrowing billions to replace the lost revenue of repeatedly cutting taxes, in order to boost the economy, isn't working.

HERE is the grim reality:

We are a nation in decline. The government's response to that decline, both R and D, has been to try to use government fiscal policy to try to make up the economic losses that the decline is inflicting;

whether it's government spending without raising taxes, whether it's government cutting taxes without cutting spending, the government is trying to stem the decline by putting wealth into the economy without paying for it.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Cutting taxes don't add to the debt, spending more then you take in does.

More nonsense.

If you spend $100 and take in $100 of taxes your budget is balanced.

If you spend $100 and cut taxes 20%, you take in $80 and you now have a $20 deficit.

It's math people.

Being the government is not entitled to our extra money they should run the government within the means by which they are authorized to tax us at. There are certain tax codes they use for revenue to run this country and if they lived within those means we would not run a deficit.
Cutting taxes allow people to spend more of their own money and puts more money back into the economy, when more money is spent into the economy more businesses hire more people, and then those people spend more money in the economy which in turn creates more tax revenue for the government.
Stop listening to the funny math that they love so much on the left, it's a failure.

That's a theory that has never worked. All we've done in the last 30 years when we've cut taxes is to simply increase deficits to make up for the lost tax revenue. If any 'stimulus' occurs at all in that scenario,

it's because the government is borrowing money to spend into the economy without making YOU pay for that spending.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Cutting taxes don't add to the debt, spending more then you take in does.

More nonsense.

If you spend $100 and take in $100 of taxes your budget is balanced.

If you spend $100 and cut taxes 20%, you take in $80 and you now have a $20 deficit.

It's math people.

Being the government is not entitled to our extra money they should run the government within the means by which they are authorized to tax us at. .

Since we have a 14 trillion dollar debt, our 'extra' money doesn't kick in until that debt is paid down.

Bush cut taxes in 2001 explicitly to prevent a surplus, however, that 'surplus' was only the amount of money that would have gone to pay down the debt.

 

[grunt11b]

More nonsense.

If you spend $100 and take in $100 of taxes your budget is balanced.

If you spend $100 and cut taxes 20%, you take in $80 and you now have a $20 deficit.

It's math people.

Being the government is not entitled to our extra money they should run the government within the means by which they are authorized to tax us at. There are certain tax codes they use for revenue to run this country and if they lived within those means we would not run a deficit.
Cutting taxes allow people to spend more of their own money and puts more money back into the economy, when more money is spent into the economy more businesses hire more people, and then those people spend more money in the economy which in turn creates more tax revenue for the government.
Stop listening to the funny math that they love so much on the left, it's a failure.

That's a theory that has never worked. All we've done in the last 30 years when we've cut taxes is to simply increase deficits to make up for the lost tax revenue. If any 'stimulus' occurs at all in that scenario,

it's because the government is borrowing money to spend into the economy without making YOU pay for that spending.

I'm sure that things like Obamas' drilling moratorium and the democrats increase in capital gains taxes that chased businesses "And jobs" out of this country have nothing to do with the bad deficit right?
This country would not be that bad off if it where not from the piss poor policies by the left.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Being the government is not entitled to our extra money they should run the government within the means by which they are authorized to tax us at. There are certain tax codes they use for revenue to run this country and if they lived within those means we would not run a deficit.
Cutting taxes allow people to spend more of their own money and puts more money back into the economy, when more money is spent into the economy more businesses hire more people, and then those people spend more money in the economy which in turn creates more tax revenue for the government.
Stop listening to the funny math that they love so much on the left, it's a failure.

That's a theory that has never worked. All we've done in the last 30 years when we've cut taxes is to simply increase deficits to make up for the lost tax revenue. If any 'stimulus' occurs at all in that scenario,

it's because the government is borrowing money to spend into the economy without making YOU pay for that spending.

I'm sure that things like Obamas' drilling moratorium and the democrats increase in capital gains taxes that chased businesses "And jobs" out of this country have nothing to do with the bad deficit right?
This country would not be that bad off if it where not from the piss poor policies by the left.

Yes I'm sure those things had virtually nothing to do with the deficit.

 

[MaggieMae]

ROFL! Obama quadrupled Bush's deficit.

No one is swallowing the shtick that Bush is responsible for Obama's $1.7 trillion deficit.

That dog won't hunt.

It's a whole book, but this synopsis will prove you dead wrong. There are trillions that never appeared in Bush's deficit number. There will be billions more attributed to it.

Aida Edemariam talks to author Joseph Stiglitz about the true cost of the Iraq war | World news | The Guardian

Never appeared? C'mon...Who the hell are you kidding?
Yes, it really happened, but there's no documentation. Try again,rookie.

Never happened, no joke:

United States federal budget - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Much of the costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been funded through regular appropriations bills, but through emergency supplemental appropriations bills. As such, most of these expenses were not included in the budget deficit calculation prior to FY2010. Some budget experts argue that emergency supplemental appropriations bills do not receive the same level of legislative care as regular appropriations bills.[44]

 

[MaggieMae]

Why would I be jealous? (Another attempted at distraction so often used by a con...) I have no personal dog in either fight because NOTHING that the government does from here on out will affect me one iota. And don't talk to me about homeless, you ******* bastard, not when I also volunteer for a homeless shelter for veterans and their lifeblood is almost all from private donations from people of all walks of life, even liberals. Imagine that.

The whole class warfare argument stems from jealousy, plain and simple. It's not complicated. There are no distractions here other than the ones you've been trying to create. And I'm also not a "con", I'm a libertarian. That means I have infinitely more common sense than you can ever hope to.

Good for you for volunteering. Did the government make you donate that time or did you choose to do it all by yourself? Did you know Warren Buffet is giving away almost his entire fortune to charity when he dies? That was also his decision, not the government's.

Your reply doesn't even make sense, let alone common sense. Too bad libertarians have also become extreme. Who the hell are you to make unprovable assertions about an anonymous person on a message board? Then defend yourself by simply saying you're a "libertarian" as though that's a valid excuse for rude insults? I'm glad I'm me, but it must suck to be you. You started out here being one of the more reasonable people, called yourself an Independent, as I recall, and now you've been drinking all the spiked Kool-aid offered up by the lunatic right wing fringe who have no real political identity other than hatred of Barack Obama.

 

[MaggieMae]

If you want more money then get off your ass and work for it. You are not entitled to a damn penny of what I or anyone else has. I don't give a flying **** if Warren Buffet has $40 billion. That $40 billion rightfully belongs to him and he can do whatever he wants with it. If he wants to bathe in $100 bills in a bath tub made of gold then that is his right and it's none of your ******* business. END OF STORY

You're jealous, plain and simple. You're entire outlook is based on your own seething jealousy that other people dare to have more than you do. Well tough shit, because that's life. Your idea that government thugs should take it away from them because you think they have more than they need is authoritarian and Stalinist. Compared to a homeless man on the street, you're living like a millionaire. Mind if we come over to your house and confiscate some of your property so we can put a homeless man in a home today? I'm guessing that would bother you just a bit.

Why would I be jealous? (Another attempted at distraction so often used by a con...) I have no personal dog in either fight because NOTHING that the government does from here on out will affect me one iota. And don't talk to me about homeless, you ******* bastard, not when I also volunteer for a homeless shelter for veterans and their lifeblood is almost all from private donations from people of all walks of life, even liberals. Imagine that.

Aww here we go...." I do volunteer work for the so and so"....Who ******* cares.
Every ******* dumb ass liberal who runs out of ideas in a discussion resorts to posting their alleged resume of selflessness..
If you have no personal dog in this fight then why are your Underoos in such as wad?
Instead of going off into a rage, why don't you answer the question...Do you mind if someone less fortunate than you treats your finances and possessions in the same manner as you would treat the finances and possessions of the wealthy people you seem to despise?
Answer that question and that only. No other commentary is welcome.

How can that question be answered because it's not a fact, but a silly conclusion (of yours)? Not even the poorest person, living solely on government social programs, expects the personal "finances and possessions" of ANYONE to support him/her. Hello???????

Once again, your personal income taxes (nor those of the wealthiest) have gone up since somewhere in the mid-1990's, so I fail to see exactly what you're all bitching about anyway. You truly act as if there are people like zombies hanging around outside your house with tin cups ready to take your last supper from you.

 

[MaggieMae]

You and your ilk have voted to steal 50% of everything I earn. That's enough to feed four families on welfare.

You're not paying 50% of everything you earn in taxes. Stop.

How do you know what he's paying? Are you his personal accountant? Do you know where he lives? States like California and New York have an income tax around 10% for most residents. Doesn't NYC have a 6% local tax on top of that? Plus there are sales taxes everyone pays, property taxes, car registration, occupancy taxes and a whole slew of taxes and fees imposed by the government.

So you're not okay with someone ELSE making assumptions.

 

[MaggieMae]

No. It. Does. Not.

Let me see if you can follow some simple math. You have been spending $60,000 dollars for ten years, and were only making $50,000 that entire time. Your debt is now $100,000 plus interest.

You get a raise, and are now making $55,000 a year. You still spend $60,000 dollars a year because your idiot brother in law told you that increasing revenue reduces debt. At the end of 10 years you owe an additional $50,000, the original $100,000, and compounded interest in the total. You raise did not decrease your debt in the slightest. The only way to decrease your debt is actually cut your spending to a level where you can put money toward paying it down.

By the way, if we want to actually make this about the government, they make $50,000 a year, spend $60,000 the first year, and increase spending every year by $5000 a year to get out of debt. At the end of 10 years they are $385,000 in debt, and are spending $60,000. They then try to hit you up for a raise to $55,000 a year, and promise you that they will spend even more money by increasing their spending at a rate of $10,000 a year because they get an additional $5,000.

How long will it take them to reduce the debt like that?

To the section I bolded: while this is true-it's not the ONLY way. Raising income will also off-set the deficit you face.

You clearly agreed that getting a pay increase of $5K would reduce the balance at the end of the year (provided you don't spend more). So what if instead of a $5K raise-it was a $15K raise. By this logic you'd match the $10K you overspend, AND reduce your deficit by $5K a year.

Where is the flaw in this logic? Making more than you take in is the only way to reduce the deficit-true. But there are two ways to accomplish this:

1. Cut your spending/spend within your limits

2. Increase your income, so you are now spending within your limits

Both of these conditions are of course provided you don't increase your spending.

edit: and this isn't directed at the person I quoted, but to others in this thread. Don't talk about how we need to follow the constitution, and ***** and moan about it-if you don't even know what's in it. Regardless of how it was originally drafted, ALL amendments are in effect (unless a later one makes an earlier one null and void). They are a part of the constitution. Period. There's no if, ands, or buts about it. It's not an opinion-it's a fact. Now if you don't agree with that portion of the constitution-that's a different story. If I thought that not having to house soldiers was stupid (for the record I obviously don't-just picking a very non-controversial amendment), that's fine-but it doesn't mean it's not in the constitution, and it doesn't mean it's not a part of the supreme law of the land.

In government spending always involves borrowing because government operates based on projected revenues. Actually government does not actually have that money to spend. Borrowing comes with interest.
The one thing that has never been tried but has been suggested is fiscal discipline. Each time this is brought up, politics gets in the way. Many factors. If budgets were to be slashed across the board many thousands of government workers would lose their jobs. I say, so what. Government work is not an entitlement and there was never an intent to grow government to the extent that it was done solely for the purpose of hiring more employees. However, that is what has happened time after time.
Your suggestion that government simply increase taxes to meet the levels of spending has never worked. That kind of operating policy has always resulted in larger deficits and more pork spending.
The best policy is to slash non-essential spending. That can be achieved by reducing labor costs. And before anyone goes off on the "what are these people supposed to do if they lose their government job" rant....well if these people are so highly skilled, they would have no problem slugging it out in the private sector just like the rest of us.
Government should cut spending and work within budget.

So you're basically saying that the rise in unemployment had nothing to do with business failures one after another following the financial meltdown. People were just not as genius as you've been in keeping your own job. Got it.

 

[MaggieMae]

To think. The people who voted for Bush's tax breaks for the wealthy are the same ones whining about deficit reduction.

To think. The same people who thought that extending the cuts for everyone are the same ones that think the deficit is meaningless.

Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill was told "deficits don't matter" when he warned of a looming fiscal crisis.

O'Neill, fired in a shakeup of Bush's economic team in December 2002, raised objections to a new round of tax cuts and said the president balked at his more aggressive plan to combat corporate crime after a string of accounting scandals because of opposition from "the corporate crowd," a key constituency.

O'Neill said he tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits-expected to top $500 billion this fiscal year alone-posed a threat to the economy. Cheney cut him off. "You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don't matter," he said, according to excerpts. Cheney continued: "We won the midterms (congressional elections). This is our due." A month later, Cheney told the Treasury secretary he was fired.

The vice president's office had no immediate comment, but John Snow, who replaced O'Neill, insisted that deficits "do matter" to the administration.
Source: [X-ref O'Neill] Adam Entous, Reuters, on AOL News Jan 11, 2004

At least Snow got that much right.

 

[NYcarbineer]

To think. The people who voted for Bush's tax breaks for the wealthy are the same ones whining about deficit reduction.

To think. The same people who thought that extending the cuts for everyone are the same ones that think the deficit is meaningless.

Who?

 

[Skull Pilot]

Tax cuts do not cause deficits.

Spending causes deficits.

Nonsense.

Tax cuts will cause deficits even if spending remains the same.

The spending is what causes deficits not the tax cuts.

If you're ******* stupid enough to spend the same amount if revenue is lessened it is still the spending (and of course the stupidity) that causes deficits.

 

[Liability]

You should look up what a deficit is to avoid looking... uninformed.

Oh hell. I'm feeling charitable. Let's give you an example, Cartman. I doubt you will be honest enough to follow along, but still, as I say, I'm feeling charitable. So, just in case you can be honest.

Let's say that the Government of Libdumb has taxed its citizens so hard and so high for so long that there is no longer any production in their economic sector earning any appreciable income above bare minimum subsistence.

So, in the past year, during fiscal year 2010-2011, the dopey liberal leaders of Libdum "spent" 5 Billion dollars -- which they did not have -- on programs they clearly could not afford. They drove themselves 5 Billion Libdum Dollars deeper into debt. Now they have to make some choices.

Can they cut taxes to the point where the income and wealth producing sector of the land can earn wealth above bare minimum subsistence? Sure they can. In fact, there's no reason not to try it.

Let's say they do that. They cut their unGodly high confiscatory tax rate. Commerce and industry come back with a bang. Even on the much lowered new Libdum national income tax "rate," the Government of Libdum finally HAS some revenues! (O joy!) NOW they can spend that money on their national needs (including possibly paying down a bit on their debt). Or, in the alternative, they can spend far more than they take in yet again. If they do the latter, their deficit spending will increase the national debt, not lower it.

Oddly, though, the first step was crucial. LOWERING TAXES CAN CLEARLY YIELD INCREASED Government revenues.

Now, tell me how ANY spending (except the spending needed to pay for interest and principle on the debt) can possibly do anything helpful in terms of cutting the deficit?

Your example doesn't work because taxes have been successively lowered multiple times since 1993. In fact, lowered repeatedly since 1981.

Tax cuts didn't save us from the last recession. Didn't save us from the jobless recovery of the Bush years. Didn't save us from the current sluggishness of this recovery.

With taxes lower and lower, and the economy not responding, and deficits growing because of lost tax revenue, clearly the policy of borrowing billions to replace the lost revenue of repeatedly cutting taxes, in order to boost the economy, isn't working.

HERE is the grim reality:

We are a nation in decline. The government's response to that decline, both R and D, has been to try to use government fiscal policy to try to make up the economic losses that the decline is inflicting;

whether it's government spending without raising taxes, whether it's government cutting taxes without cutting spending, the government is trying to stem the decline by putting wealth into the economy without paying for it.

We have indeed been in decline. The decline is not necessary, though. The government policy of trying to "create" wealth has always been stupid and destined to failure since governments don't CREATE wealth. They may help foster the conditions by which business/industry/entrepreneurs create wealth, however. Otherwise what governments do (while PRETENDING to "create" wealth) is merely to redistribute the walth created by others.

Government CAN spend without raising taxes if the spending is LIMITED to the revenues taken in. SOMETIMES government CAN cut taxes without cutting spending when the conditions suggest that tax cuts will stimulate the private sector sufficiently to generate enough additional income such that the lower tax rates garner more revenue for the government. And the only "wealth" the government CAN put into the economy is necessarily redistributed wealth so their Rube-Goldberg plots always fail.

If you are paying attention, what I have said is that tax cuts CAN (not that they always do) result in increased government revenue. But if that topic is going to EVER get validly discussed, then ALL of the forms in which GOVERNMENT taxes BUSINESS have to be taken into account. If (to oversimplify) the FEDS have "given" to the States a portion of the Fed tax receipts to "help out" the States, and then the Feds cease collecting that portion of the taxes (while ceasing such payments to the States), the tax burden APPEARS to be lowered. But what would be the STATES' reaction? To pay for the programs they used to fund bia the Tax receipts given to them by the Feds, they will have to RAISE THEIR OWN TAXES. There may or may not be a net equilibrium achieved, but let's not pretend that the taxpayers and industry/business aren't paying ridiculously high taxes either way.

This gets almost pointless to discuss. We are living in a land where the Feds may tax Joe income Earner at say 31%. Joe's State, meanwhile, is hitting him with maybe 9%. The City might also be squeezing him as is his school district. Total comes in at over 42 42%. But he aint done. He buys ANYTHING (except groceries, usually) and he pays more taxes. He buys Gasoline for the absurd reason that he thinks getting back and forth to work might help him stay employed, and he pays lots of Federal and State taxes on top of all the above. He's still not done. If, like me, he has the audacity to commute into NYC, he gets to pay NYC a commuter tax. And of course, the businesses who produce the products he wants are also getting taxed. They don't pay the taxes, of course since they pass it along. So the COST of his purchases are artificially made significantly HIGHER because Joe is busy paying his proportional share of the corporate taxes.

And regulations. The over-used phrase "bureaucratic red tape" is no longer sufficinetly conveying the problem that Governmental nanny state meddling has. The COSTS to businesses of complying with an incredibly vast array of Laws, Rules, Regulations and "policies" comes in the form of lower productivity for the companies which translates into higher prices per unit. That's a hidden tax on the companies and on the consumers, too, but nobody on the left wants to admit that.

And all for WHAT?

To drive our industry into the arms of competitors overseas, along with the jobs that might otherwise have been available here? To generate "revenues" for the Federal Government used on actual necessities but also on tons of crap most of us neither want nor need and to which many of us take extreme exception.

The deficit can be cut by cutting spending. A LOT.

Why can't we give that a try?

 

[Skull Pilot]

The deficit can be cut by cutting spending. A LOT.

Why can't we give that a try?

Because people will DIIIIIIEEEEE!!!!!!!!!

 

[Liability]

The deficit can be cut by cutting spending. A LOT.

Why can't we give that a try?

Because people will DIIIIIIEEEEE!!!!!!!!!

I forgot.


And yet

and yet

and yet

if we FAIL to cut spending -- and thereby fail to cut the ******* deficit -- it is just as true that

people will DIIIIIIEEEEE!!!!!!!!!

 

[MaggieMae]

Sure.

Your example seems loosely based on the conservatives much loved "Laffer curve", the problem is that even if you believe the concept you will notice that there is a sweet spot on the curve where revenue is maximized and it starts to drop after that if you keep lowering the tax rate. Our current tax rates are historically low and we have had decades of growth under much higher rates.

Government spending is frequently used to soften an economic downturn which in turn maintains more tax revenue by saving jobs and business. Government money that is spent is just like any money that is spent, it goes to businesses and employees that are taxed and who in turn spend and the cycle goes on creating a multiplier effect.

We have a debt to GDP ratio of over 5% and climbing. We have unsustainable debts long term. By 2020 it has been projected to cost us 90% of our GDP -- and that's based on rosy projections. Have you ever seen what happens AFTER 2020?

The POINT is not to debate the specific of the LAffer curve. The POINT is to RECOGNIZE that we have allowed ourselves (by our failure to rein in our elected representatives) to accumulate MASSIVE and dangerous debt.

The POINT is that you can have a year of ZERO additional debt (not counting interest payments, sadly) even if revenues are brought down to zero by the simple expedient of spending nothing.

It is SPENDING that drives the deficit.

You can't tax your way into prosperity. The very notion is foolish lib-think. Even 60 Minutes had a piece on the fact that the unduly high corporate tax structure in our nation drives businesses (and jobs) overseas. I can't help it that you libs live your life with your head in the sand. But he fact is pretty obvious. IF you want to "create" jobs (which the government doesn't actually EVER do), you can FOSTER the climate where the businesses that make such a thing POSSIBLE might be inclined to do so. LOWER taxes.

Spending and revenue are equal in determining the deficit but cutting spending or raising taxes too much could hurt our recovery which would hurt revenues.

If you are serious about deficit reduction you should cut spending and maybe reform taxes. You don't have to raise the tax rates just cut some of the deductions that were bought by lobbyists.

And there's the kicker. How many actually PAY the 35% or 25% in the case of corporations? GE is just the latest example of the latter. The problem with trying to establish a budget is that the federal government operates under an accrual accounting system, so it forecasts X-amount of revenue for the forthcoming fiscal year. Then it gets hit when those revenues never happen because of all the tax loopholes.